The word “liaozhai” first came from the book “liaozhai zhiyi” (1766; “Strange Stories from Liaozhai Studio”: “liaozhai” is the name of a place), which is a book of Pu Songling(1640-1715)—a famous Chinese fiction writer.

It is 431 tales of the unusual and supernatural stories, freely adopting forms and themes from the old marvel tales. Some people say that the book is the 1st Chinese book describing horror stories: ghost, especially women ghosts. It is hard to read as it was written in the classical idiom. But its TV version is very popular in China among all ages of people. And there are many different versions of some similar stories.

Gradually, the word “liaozhai” evolves to mean some horrible, unusual and unreal things. If somebody tell you that he/she is watching “liaozhai”, it means that he/she is watching a horror movie, also if somebody say that you are speaking “liaozhai”, that means that you are telling something strange and untrue.